


Another "Almost Perfect" Didn't Work

by katicsfx



Series: Obligatory Au's [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Sad with a Happy Ending, but not how you might think, its like an in passing sort of thing, really everyone is just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:33:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katicsfx/pseuds/katicsfx
Summary: Heri always thought that her soulmate would be the one to drag her from her relatives, she dreamed of them coming in and whisking her away from the horror that she considered being the Dursleys. She thought they would be smart, strong, caring, she hoped they would love her, she hoped she would be enough for them.





	Another "Almost Perfect" Didn't Work

Even with all the danger surrounding her, Henrietta Potter could still come to call Hogwarts home. So at the end of her first year, it was only fair for her to be so disappointed that she had to return to the unpleasant abode of the Dursleys. It was only fair that she spent the train ride swallowing down her anxiety. It was only fair that once she was off the train that she would take as long as possible to cross the barrier and return to her horrid relatives.

It was when she was standing in front of the brick wall that she found she couldn't move any further. Dread filled her very bones and at once she felt as if she were on the path that leads to her death instead of her relatives. It wasn't fair! They hated her and she hated them! How was she to know they wouldn't just stick her back in her old cubbie? Or worse, what if they weren't even there to pick her up! Would she be expected to walk back to Surry? It would take her the rest of the day surely! 

"What are you blocking the bloody barrier for?!" A voice called out behind her and she turned wide-eyed to see Terrence Higgs, the Slytherin seeker, looking down at her in annoyance before the words began to spill from her lips.

"I don't wanna go back to them, please don't make me go back!" it was a desperate plea that had the older boy losing his composure, staring in wonder at the girl who spoke the words etched into his collarbone. Annoyance and ire turned to hesitance and indecisiveness as Heri looked up at the boy who was supposed to be made for her. She was sure he could help her, because if he couldn't . . . Tears welled in her eyes involuntarily as she glanced back at the wall. If he couldn't help then she was surely lost.

Terrence Higgs stared at her for a few more moments before he clenched his jaw and a mask of indifference was in place. Looking at it, Heri knew she was on her own.

"Listen, Potter, I have reservations and we can't all wait for the precious girl-who-lived to stand around all day. Either move out of the way or go through already!" he snapped at her, and it was enough for the girl to start sniffling. Heri grabbed her trolley and pushed through to see a platform void of her relatives. Perhaps they had forgotten her, she had hoped minutely before a hand grabbed her arm and she was staring up at the sneering face of her aunt Petunia.

She heard Higgs come through but didn't dare look back. Perhaps if she did, she would see his face form to hold guilt and regret as he observed Petunia Dursley dragging the young girl away. Perhaps she could've found the courage to snatch her arm away in a show of Gryffindor courage and stand up to her aunt. Perhaps she might even have had the idea to try and run back onto the platform to find the Weasleys. As Heri hadn't looked back, she hadn't known, she hadn't done, and she certainly hadn't thought.

Instead, she followed dutily, old habits that she had thought she had broken returned quickly and easily in the face of her relatives. She spent the summer sitting quietly among other broken things, in the safety that used to be Dudley's old second bedroom. There she stayed until a house elf admitted to stealing her post and got her in trouble with her aunt and uncle, and there she stayed still waiting for summer to be over when the Weasleys had rescued her.

So she finished her summer in a happy home and she was amazed at the care that could be given to a child. She was introduced to Ginny, who got over her hero worship fairly quickly when the two of them spent many nights gossiping. She traveled by floo, stuttering slightly and coming up in an entirely different place than expected. She was reintroduced to Malfoy, and then to his father. She was happy, she was getting back to her old (new) self, she hadn't even thought of the green-eyed Slytherin bearing her words once after getting to the Weasleys. She wouldn't care that some rude, stuck-up, Slytherin boy didn't want her, it didn't matter in the long run.

(But why did she hurt when she thought back on it, why did tears fall and why were sobs heard. Why couldn't she stop staring at the ceiling in wonder, maybe if she had let the hat put her in Slytherin as it wanted, he would have helped her? Why wouldn't he help her? Why didn't he want her?)

She didn't care, truly she didn't. It was irrelevant, at least, until it wasn't. Parvarti and Lavander were gushing the minute they returned to the dorms, Lavender had found her Soulmate. Hermione, Fey, and Aristele were dragged into the conversation fairly quickly. Hermione talking about meeting Ron the year before; Fey and Parvati listening to Aristele talk about her soulmate (a witch that hadn't come to Hogwarts); and then they were asking her about her soulmate.

She didn't know what to say, her eyes were wide and everything she had bottled down threatened to come back up in a spew of words that she knew wouldn't make sense.

"Mine... H-he didn't want me," she whispered it as she looked down. tears came to her eyes as she remembered the rejection and the embarrassment she had felt. Suddenly the girls were all piled on her bed, hugging her and apologizing, giving her the comfort she hadn't know she needed earlier that summer and she broke. She sobbed for a life she wouldn't have and the person who hadn't wanted her while being comforted by the second years (and eventually the girls on the Quidditch team when they found out).

It remained a secret between the girls, not a soul outside knew about it. And when Alicia, Katie, and Angelica finally managed to weasel a name out of Heri, they called in a few favors with Fred and George. So maybe Heri didn't know what it was like to have a soulmate who loved her, but she certainly learned what it was like to have sisters who had her back.


End file.
